


Commander Of Darkness

by Kendrene



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Blood Magic, Canon Divergent, Civil War, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Post 3x07, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-01 04:56:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10914774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: Lexa is dead. Clarke and Murphy are sent away by Titus - they have time till dawn to make it past the blockade - but Wanheda has other plans. And so does the mysterious stranger that tells her of an ancient ritual that could bring the Commander back from the dead. But is Clarke ready to pay the price?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Today was the day from Hell - so I am posting something to cheer myself up and keep my mind off recurring health problems (but like, I am really tired of this shit, it would be cool if my body stopped fucking me over). 
> 
> Anyway - enjoy - hopefully. 
> 
> WARNING 
> 
> Lexa is dead for part of the chapter, be aware of this before reading. Thank you.

“What are you doing?” Murphy’s words hiss from the darkness, but Clarke keep walking without a backward glance, until he reaches out with an exasperated sigh and grabs her sleeve. 

“Titus’ rooms are the opposite way!” 

She can barely see his face in the waning light of the moon, but it isn’t hard to guess that he is frowning. For a moment Clarke thinks that he is actually concerned for her, then discards the idea as ridiculous - Murphy only cares about Murphy.

She jerks her arm, tries to pull away and hears a few stitches pop softly as the cloth of her jacket tears, but he holds onto her if anything tightening  his hold. 

In the end Clarke quits struggling for fear that their scuffling will attract the guards posted on this level. It has been a small miracle that they have made it back inside the Tower after Titus had so generously kicked them out - or perhaps - Clarke thinks, some invisible hand is at work, the same hand that sent the old woman to her in Lexa’s chambers while Murphy slept earlier in the afternoon. That still feels like a dream - not only the woman’s whisper in her ear, but the whole day - and Clarke almost wants to call it a mercy. She has spent every waking moment after they’ve been sent free wondering when her mind will decide to unravel. 

Thinking back Clarke isn’t even sure it had been a woman, her face so hidden by rags, her voice so rough with age that it was hard to tell.

“I thought you wanted to steal the Flame,” Murphy continues, as he peers into her eyes, “but those stairs lead to the throne room,” his voice turns oddly soothing, “whatever you want to do with her body Clarke, Lexa’s gone. She’s dead and that’s only a…” 

She slaps him so hard his face turns sideways - her arm moves before her mind can register the act. 

Not that she would have stopped it.

The sound echoes down the shadowed hallway and there is a small part of her that regrets it, but it’s a small part and when Clarke remembers Raven and Wells the voice is silenced. 

Murphy cups his cheek, a stricken look crossing his features - hurt perhaps or more likely disbelief - but Clarke is too numb inside to care about his feelings. If he even has any.

“Go, then, if you want to. You’re pretty good at running away.” She adds, as if the slap hasn’t been a clear enough message.

“Maybe I should. Maybe I should have stuck with Jaha even if he was a fucking lunatic since I’ve been shat on from the moment I came back.” 

“Maybe you should have died in the desert with him, supposing you told us the truth about that,” a low, spiteful growl as all of Clarke’s hurt and anger bubble to the surface from the festering hole that had been ripped open inside her chest. 

“Why are you still alive, after all you’ve done...when she...when she…” 

She clenches her fists, her nails cut deep grooves in the skin of her palms, and Murphy shrugs, eyes so full of pity that she has to turn her back on him.

“I am lucky. She wasn’t.” 

Clarke feels his hand on her shoulder and he prompts her forward. “Let’s do whatever we came here to do quickly then leave. I’ve been in grounder prison and would rather not repeat the experience, even if you have a death wish.”

They climb the stone steps that lead up to the floor where the throne room and Heda’s apartments are, and Clarke begins to wonder how they’re going to get past the guards that are surely watching over the body. 

_ Her _ body.

Nausea rocks the stairwell under her feet and she has to lean against the wall for support. She takes shallow breaths until she feels lightheaded. but even if her stomach stops rolling her chest keeps on aching. She half expects Murphy to say something snide, but he just moves past her and climbs the last few steps, peeking carefully around the corner.

“There’s no guards.” He shoots her a weird look, “did you do something?”

“What? We were locked up on this floor together until a few hours ago,” Clarke answers, trying to suppress her disquiet. The lack of guards  _ is..  _ troubling. “And I doubt my title carries any weight with the grounders now, thanks to Titus.” 

Murphy grunts, then takes a few steps towards the throne room at the far end of the hall and she follows. 

“Let’s just take the chance. Maybe these guys do sleep on the job after all.” 

They move to the massive double doors, and he pulls one open, barely wide enough for them to squeeze through. Once inside, Clarke forgets everything about the missing guards, and while she hears Murphy wrestle a heavy wooden bar across the door, he may as well have vanished for all the attention she pays to his efforts.

“Thanks for helping, Clarke!” He grunts sourly, but she is already moving towards the middle of the room, eyes trained on the table placed in its middle. Lexa’s body lays atop it, and Clarke is suddenly glad that it is tightly wrapped in a shroud, even as she knows she’d have to bare the Commander’s face. 

The woman’s instructions have been very clear. 

“If you’re done…” Murphy starts, but Clarke sets the small satchel she brought on the marble floor, and shrugs off her coat. “You’re not done. Ok.” He raises his hands and walks back to the door, then presses his ear to the thick wood, on the lookout for returning guards.

Clarke rummages inside her bag, withdrawing an oilcloth that she carefully unwraps. 

Inside are a number of slender, white candles veined with green. A fragrant scent wafts from them, strong enough to make even Murphy turns for a moment as he sniffs the air with a puzzled look. 

She places four candles on the table in correspondence of the cardinal points, the rest equally spaced between them, and lights them up as she goes. “Rosemary for remembrance,” she murmurs as they begin to burn, their scent growing stronger. 

“More candles?” Murphy asks from his station at the door, “isn’t it a bit of an overkill?” He gestures to the room around them, made bright as day by hundreds of fluttering flames.

“Quiet.” Clarke mumbles, focused on remembering the woman’s instructions.

The stranger was very specific, especially adamant about doing things in order and prices to pay. Clarke didn’t care about the cost - she hadn’t really listened to that part- willing to do anything to have Lexa back.

“Dill to ward against evil,” she continues, withdrawing a small bundle of the herb from the satchel and placing it next to Lexa’s covered head, “holly for hope,” more bundles follow, the mixing smells of all the herbs making her head swim, “and heliotrope for eternal love.” 

She takes the last handful of herbs with care, slowly places it over Lexa’s heart and chooses to ignore Murphy’s snort. 

The first part is done, she thinks as she rubs her hands along her arms, suddenly cold - now comes the hardest one. 

Clarke walks to the head of the table and her feet drag, her fingers shake as she reaches out for the shroud. 

“Clarke?” Murphy questions alarmed, taking a hesitant step towards her. She shakes her head, raising a terrible gaze that freezes him in place, before she takes hold of the fabric, and yanks it off of Lexa’s face not giving herself the time to reconsider.

He was right on the stairwell. she thinks as her eyes rove over slackened features that are as much foreign to her mind as they are familiar. This isn’t her Lexa, but a waxy imitation, sickly pale in its parody of life. The Commander’s spirit fled and this is nothing but an empty shell, a shadow, a mockery of what the brunette had been. 

For the space of a heartbeat Clarke reconsiders - she could cover that frightening face again, retrace her step and leave Polis as if nothing had ever happened between them, except that she knows she is a broken thing, and that she won’t last long left to her own devices. 

Or she could believe her afternoon visitation and have Lexa back, no matter the cost. 

She watches herself, like half asleep, as her hand drops to the knife at her waist, unsheathing it with a scrape of sharp steel against leather. Clarke hears Murphy’s voice rise, his hurried footsteps, but before his shadow can fall across the table, Clarke’s sliced a neat line along her wrist, scarlet blood dripping from it and over Lexa’s lips. 

“Blood must have blood,” she croaks, the cut aching far more than it should have, as fire spreads from it, cracking her bones and boiling her marrow, “jus drein jus daun.” 

“Clarke we’re going! This is madness!” Murphy’s heavy hand falls on her shoulder and he tries to jerk her back, but she is rooted to the spot by an invisible force, her feet seemingly fused into the stone beneath her boots. There is so much blood, too much for such a nick and it drizzles over Lexa’s pallid skin like gruesome rain. 

“Open this door!” Frantic pounding shatters the silence and the wooden bar that Murphy placed across the entrance, sealing them inside with Heda’s corpse for company, bends inwards creaking omniously, “open in the name of the Fleimkepa!” 

The knife falls from Clarke’s nerveless fingers, and she is dimly aware of Murphy’s hands moving along her arm, before his hand presses a piece of torn cloth to the cut on her wrist. 

But the world is receding, it grows dark at the edges, and the only thing that Clarke can focus on - the only thing that feels real - is Lexa’s still face, spattered in her blood. 

She grows colder, and as her legs slowly give way, an unseen gale sweeps the throne room,  snuffing all the candles out. The room plunges into sudden darkness just as the wooden bar that  held the guards at bay explodes inward in a shower of splinters, that patter like frozen rain upon the marble-veined floor. 

Defeat is bitter poison in Clarke’s mouth and she screams as fleeing hope leaves her reeling and empty.

And yet -- yet she thinks she’s seen limbs jerk under the shroud just before the light died. 

“Get the blasphemers away from her!” Titus’ enraged voice cuts through the pitch black darkness, bounces off the walls until it comes from everywhere and nowhere, then feet scuffle towards them, accompanied by cursing voices, “take the skayons! Their lives are forfeit.” 

Murphy tries to tug her back again, perhaps hoping they can somehow use the deeper shadows behind Lexa’s throne to hide from the searching guards, but even though now she  _ wants _ to move, Clarke can’t as if her limbs are trapped in ice, unseen fingers squeezing every last drop of blood out of her. 

Another hand - one much rougher than Murphy’s - grasps her arm, then the guard yelps and pulls away, crashing backwards. 

Whatever force held her upwards it dissipates with the guard’s touch, and Clarke crumbles into an unseeing, unfeeling heap, utterly drained. People circle her, angry, shouting, steel toed boots kicking painfully into her sides. Someone grabs her by her hair, lifts her with a snarl, and the blonde feels the cold bite of a blade against her jugular.

“Em pleni!” Lexa’s words cut through the rising din, voice as sharp as one of her blades, clear as the first rays of sun after a storm.

But Lexa’s dead - and Clarke starts to laugh at the irony of her mind finally giving way to madness at the worst possible time. 

The world descends into chaos.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke begins to see the repercussions of her act - and starts to be a bit afraid. At least Murphy is there to sass her in times of need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the great responses on chapter one! Hope you keep enjoying the fic! I am having fun writing it.

When Clarke comes to, her wrists are bound.

She isn’t surprised - expects it even - yet the inability to move is unnerving all the same.

It’s not the first time Clarke has been restrained - Anya bound her wrists with coarse rope after the Mountain then Roan did the same, a gag in her mouth for good measure, before dragging her back to Polis.

Back to Lexa.

Clarke’s mind shrinks away from the Commander like a wounded beast, and she forces herself to go back to her previous train of thought, until her brain is entirely focused on the bindings wrapped tightly around her wrists.

The first time she’d been restrained against her will was on the Ark - and it feels like a lifetime has passed since then, or maybe two.  

Clarke recalls frightful hours spent strapped to a chair as Jaha loomed over her and asked questions about her father, what she knew of his plans, how many people she had informed of the Ark failing. She had been terrified, more by his fatherly demeanour throughout the interrogation than the Guard’s shock batons, until she had found a trick to tune him out, to distance herself from everything that was happening around her.

Happening _to_ her.

She’d found a dent in the wall behind him and glued her stare to it, mind untethering and free to drift further and further away from the sensations coming from her own body. A girl had been sleep deprived and starved - but it wasn’t Clarke. A girl had been shocked lashed until her skin split open.

But not her.

Except that now the trick doesn’t quite work.

 

*****************

 

Time passes slowly in the dark, the line between day and night blurred until the two become indistinguishable.

Clarke is thirsty, her lips when she can feel them painfully cracked, her tongue when she can move it seemingly twice its usual size.

Mostly though she misses any form of light, and she starts to wonder where they are keeping her, since not even a sliver of it reaches her eyes. A dungeon she supposes, somewhere perhaps even deeper down in the Tower’s bowels than Titus’ chambers.

She tells herself that such a place would smell of earth and rot, the air cold like that of a tomb. But when she can feel breeze stir across her body, it’s dry and neither chilled nor hot.

When her stomach starts to cramp with hunger, Clarke thinks at least a day has passed, but by this point she isn’t even sure whether her eyes are open or closed. She feels weird - disjointed? - her own body a foreign thing that refuses to do what she orders it to.

Still she’s not afraid. Not yet.

 

*****************

 

There are moments in which Clarke doesn’t feel her body at all - and moments when she feels it far too much for comfort.

This is one of the latter, her stomach-twisting hunger gnawing incessantly at her spine. She feels like she’s sinking into herself, her bones slowly softening and turning to powder inside the sheath of her weakened muscles.

Is it the second day? The third? Clarke isn’t sure, but what is obvious is that Titus has a strategy. He wants to weaken her body and her mind, make her pliant to his questions. He think perhaps that she’ll name the accomplices he thinks she has out of desperation.

Whatever way he chooses to make her talk however, Clarke has no doubt it will be painful.

But Clarke has nothing to say no matter how deep they cut her - and it scares her.

The first slivers of fear are subtle things that scratch at her skin before settling underneath. They burrow their way inside her like worms and slowly hatch in the hollow spaces between muscle and bone, until Clarke begins to strain against the silence, desperate to hear the telltale scuffle of boots on stone, the scrape of knives being bared for the cutting.

(because let’s be honest, they are coming for her, although she doesn’t put it past Titus to just leave her buried alive here, alone and forgotten until her name is but a memory, and her bones a scattering of dust on the cell’s floor)

And that’s what does the trick - flashes of light illuminate the darkness - swirling colors and random patterns glow in front of her itching eyes before dissolving. But one doesn’t - a pinprick, a drop of unreacheable, palpitating light suspended like a jewel among the velvet black.

A girl starts to scream somewhere. But it’s not Clarke.

Not her.

 

*****************

 

They’re drowning her.

Clarke didn’t even hear them coming - let alone see them - and before she could even form a thought about resisting, icy water poured into her mouth.

The water is so cold it edges every crack of her lips with frost. It makes her teeth ache, lines her gums with a cold fire and for a moment - one glorious moment at that - it tastes like heaven on her dried tongue.

Then some goes up her nose and the rest fills her throat to bursting and she can’t breathe through it, choking and coughing when she tries.

The world blinks into existence around her - and it does not come gentle. One moment, she is alone with nothing but dark and burning lungs for company, the next a room blinks into view, cutting her vision with the sharpness of each detail.

Clarke bolts upright, or rather tries to - but her body is of another mind and refuses to cooperate. A face hovers next to hers and for a few heartbeats it remains a fractured collection of skin and shadows.

(and she wonders what is real - if this room and this face, or the darkness before it, her mind too exhausted to make sense of what her eyes are showing her.)

When the face comes into focus it’s not one she thought she’d see again, nor one she particularly likes, but Clarke is glad - she takes comfort in the familiar.

“Murphy.” A broken husk, wrong somehow, as if her voice is coated with a film of rust.

“Observant as always.” He snarks back.

At least some things don’t change - the lazy thought drifts across her mind - unlike his face. His nose is crooked for one thing, bending slightly to the right. and if before it was his sharpest feature now he looks positively hawkwish.

(but perhaps that’s due to the way he’s perching on a stool next to where she lays.)

A bed. She lays on a bed. How?

“The cell,” she manages weakly, the words mangled by the thirst that still consumes her, “are we…?”

“Cell?” He looks at her puzzled, scratches his chin and shifts to sit more comfortably, “you were never in a cell. Not after...” He trails off and gestures vaguely, to what lays beyond a closed door, to rooms better left unnamed.

And better yet - unseen.

“I..” Clarke shakes her head and the room tilts, “I was bound. In the dark…”

Murphy’s laugh is more like a hard bark, rich with disbelief.

“Everything is dark when you have your eyes closed, Clarke,” the grin seems to stretch his lips impossibly wide, “and if by bound you mean bandaged..” he plucks at the linen wrapped around her wrist, “then I guess you have a point.”

She shakes her head again, her cheek sticking to the sweat-drenched pillow she is resting on. Trying to recall the last few days leaves her dizzy, bile rising up her throat.

“You don’t...remember?” She meets his eyes and whatever he reads on her face has irony die inside his throat, “shit, you really don’t remember.”

“Remember what?” Clarke frowns, irritation edging her words. Then again she’s not surprised - Murphy has a special gift for irritating people.

“Raising the dead,” his voice falters a bit at that, blanched lines appear around his eyes and he _retreats -_ body tilting away from her precariously, to the point he almost falls off the stool.

Suddenly he looks as if he doesn’t really know her.

“One particular dead.” A whisper so low Clarke isn’t sure she’s heard right.

Her eyes narrow and she wonders if Murphy is playing an elaborate joke on her, but the weariness - fear? - that darkens his eyes to pitch black is genuine.

(It _worked_ \- oh God, _Spirits_ it _did_ work.)

Clarke lets out a small gasp, hand going to her chest. Her heart beats like a frightened bird under her fingertips, and she finds that she can’t fill her lungs with air completely, no matter how hard she tries.

“Easy.” Her shoulders jerk when Murphy’s hand awkwardly covers hers - and it’s clear he’s as surprised as she by his own gesture. “Don’t get used to that.” He mumbles under his breath and the band that lays heavy across her heart eases a little, a sound - half snort, half sob - leaving her mouth.

“Has she… Is she…” For the life of her, Clarke can’t continue.

“She hasn’t come to see you, “ he replies, “warriors brought you here and dragged me along. Someone leaves food at regular intervals - just outside the door.”

Said door opens with a soft creak and Murphy scrambles off the stool - surprising Clarke for the third time in the space of an hour by placing himself between her and whoever is edging cautiously inside. He scrambles off his seat so fast that the stool clatters loudly to the floor.

Turns out it’s be a girl, young and pretty, one of Heda’s own maidens if Clarke goes by the cut of her skirt and the shawl draped across her shoulders. She has hair of a blonde even paler than her own, and vivid green eyes that go as round as saucers when she manages to peek over Murphy’s shoulder and finds that Clarke is looking at her.

The girl squeals and practically flies backwards - back pressed against the doorjamb.

“ _Wanheda_ ,” she stammers, “ _Wanheda stomba raun_ ! _Stomba raun_!” [wanheda...wanheda is awake! She’s awake!]

The handmaiden whips around and runs out of the room, door slamming hard on her heels.

Clarke stares after her puzzled, not really sure how to interpret the hurried retreat.

“Oh they’ve been like that since Lexa bolted upright in the throne room,” Murphy supplies, “half of them are terrified of you, the other half look about ready to kiss the ground you walk on.”

He bends down to straighten the stool, before plopping back down on it.

“As if we needed your head to get any bigger.”

Clarke is about to rebut - although her thoughts are still quite out of synch - when the door opens again, so hard it bounds against the wall, and an army of handmaidens spills inside the room, the girl that looked so scared moments before among them.

It’s safety in numbers or something of the sort - Clarke thinks with a wry smile that dies like a guttering candle when she spots who is leading the contingent.

Samira - Lexa’s First Maid is a force to be reckoned with as she knows well from past (disastrous) encounters and the displeased way she glares at her, has Clarke push back into the pillows. The woman looks positively offended by how tousled Clarke’s hair are, and the steel-grey eyes taking in her rumpled appearance have Clarke blush and squirm uneasily.

The First Maid looks ready for a war, and Clarke is positive that she’s the battlefield.

When Clarke shoots a look at Murphy, she groans at the amused smirk plastered on his face as he witnesses the scene - she’s never going to hear the end of this - but his enjoyment is short-lived, and his grin wiped when Samira’s eyes meet his.

“Out, boy.”

It’s Clarke’s turn to grin - an expression she is careful to conceal as soon as Samira’s attention turns back to her - Murphy dismissed and therefore nothing the First Maid needs to concerns herself with any longer.  

For a change Murphy goes without remark, and the way he holds himself on the way out speaks volumes about relief.

With him out of the way the room becomes a flurry of activity. One of the handmaidens feeds dry wood to the dying fire until roaring flames are filling the stone hearth and warming the room nicely.  

Others fold back the dark wooden panels that shadowed a corner of the room, and Clarke sits forward eagerly at the sight of a copper tub. She is all too aware of how clammy with old sweat her back is, how messy and tangled her hair.

Samira claps her hands and two maids step up to the bed, the pale haired girl and another older one.

Clarke looks at them both and finds quick proof of Murphy’s words.

The older girl stares at her so reverently that her eyes look ready to fall out of her head, while the one who found out she was awake is shaking slightly and doesn’t meet her gaze.

“Please,” Clarke murmurs, trying to look as harmless as she can, “don’t be afraid.”

“Lina!” The pale girl jumps and casts a timid look toward Samira, “quit dawdling.” The First Maid clasps her hands at her waist and taps a foot expectantly against the floor’s tiles, “Heda waits.”

The fear Lina has of Samira must be more that that she feels towards Clarke, because the girl pushes her hesitation to one side and - together with the other handmaiden (who whispers that her name is Alara when the First Maid isn’t looking) helps Clarke out of bed.

Nobody remarks on her state or the fact she is stark naked, and Clarke has learned to get used to how unfazed grounders seem by nudity - more generally she has come to understand that their concept of privacy is quite different from that of her own people.

On the Ark - perhaps because space came at a premium - privacy and personal spaces were valued and tenaciously defended. Grounders have communal baths, often families raise children together - their sense of community, and the familiarity that comes with it is stronger than anything Clarke ever experienced - at least inside members of the same clan.

The maidens help her into the tub, steadying her as she lowers herself into the hot water with a hiss so that she doesn’t slip on the tub’s polished bottom.

The water is painfully hot against her skin, but as warmth seeps deep into her body, a pervasive lassitude envelopes her limbs, and Clarke relaxes into the liquid’s embrace with a half mind of letting herself sink below the water’s surface.

The First Maiden has other ideas however, and exchanges a few quick words with her assistants. One of the girls coaxes Clarke’s head back, ignoring her groan of protest, while Lina carefully pours more hot water over her head, before lathering her hair with a soap that smells like pine wood and musk.

Deft fingers work loose the knots that have formed while Clarke slept, then massage her scalp energetically. Still, the touches are soothing and Clarke’s eyes starts to droop shut, her body floating weightless in the water.

“You said Heda waits?” She asks lazily as the handmaidens rub her body down with a rag. “Has she said why?”

“No, Wanheda. She ordered you be washed and dressed, then brought to her in the throne room.”

Clarke frowns - this doesn’t sound like the Lexa she knows. The brunette never really ordered her around before, not like this.

(a small voice reminds her of how Roan dragged her back to Polis gagged and bound on Heda’s orders and she amends - alright, it happened, but it was just the once)

The bath is over far too quickly for Clarke’s liking and her disquiet grows as clothes are brought into the room for her - clothes Heda herself chose, according to Samira.

The smallclothes are nothing surprising, simple grey short and bindings for her breasts, that Clarke has long learned to wrap around her chest herself - but Alara gasps, outrage and horror mixing on her face when she tries to do it without assistance, so she lets the maidens fuss around her as if she were a doll and they were children playing at dressing it.

The pants Lexa picked for her are snug, but soft, the shirt a blue so deep it looks almost black. What gives Clarke pause is the leather coat, black with blue tassels that match her eyes - which comes complete with a shoulder guard that looks suspiciously like Lexa’s own.

It _is_ Lexa’s - she realizes with a pang of an emotion she can’t name - and Clarke doesn’t know if it’s meant as a symbol of protection or one of ownership.

She feels sick all of a sudden, fresh sweat popping on her brow.

She is mistaken surely -- ?

A sash comes with the pauldron, a shimmering blue black edged in bone white, where Heda’s own is scarlet, and one of the maidens waits with it gathered on outstretched arms as the First Maid leads Clarke to the stool Murphy had occupied, sitting her down with a firm hand.

Samira doesn’t speak as she brings a jar into view, dipping a slender brush into it and dabbing careful lines across Clarke’s cheeks.

Warpaint - and her next thought is she’s gonna be sick all over the floor. Except her stomach’s empty and so there’s nothing inside her to be sick with.

When Clarke tries to pull away, the First Maiden clucks disapprovingly and nails her in place with one hard stare. Whatever the other girls think of Clarke, Samira isn’t affected.

Or, if she is, she hides it rather well.

There are questions amassing on the tip of Clarke’s tongue, but apparently no time to ask any of them.

Once the FIrst Maid is finished - giving a satisfied nod as she regards her handiwork - the maiden holding the sash steps forward, just as Lina draws Clarke to her feet. She expects them to secure the length of cloth over her shoulder, but they drape it over her hair like a shawl, and she remembers a crisp morning and a happy horse ride ending in tragedy.

Clarke remembers Lexa’s terrible, terribly cold anger, and she worries and frets as the maidens close around her - an unarmed escort but no less dangerous than a coterie of warriors.

They usher her outside without a word, where warriors are waiting to swell the solemn ranks.

And Clarke begins to wonder - if the one waiting for her really is her Lexa. And if not --

If it isn’t, then _what exactly_ has she brought back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa come face to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but it felt like a good breaking point. 
> 
> Next: Aden swoops in to fix things!
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> \- Dren

Heda’s Tower is a battlefield. 

Oh, the servants have done a wonderful job of disguising the aftermath of war - but Clarke has been around grounders long enough to know the signs. 

For one thing there are far more guards roaming the halls than she ever remembers seeing, all of them armed to the teeth - and most (Clarke realizes this with a sick twist of her stomach) are Trikru. Before Lexa was shot, this floor of the Tower was teeming with dignitaries from the various clans, but of the Twelve she only counts a handful - Broadleaf and Floukru, Shadow Valley and the Horse clan. 

A gaggle of Red Cliff warriors that drop to their knees with a crash as she passes by - and Clarke falters to a stop, disbelief threatening to stretch her mouth open as one of them meets her eye with a shout on his lips that’s dripping affirmation.

“ _ Osir laik Wanheda gonas _ !” [we are Wanheda’s warriors]. At least that what she thinks he’s saying - but his accent is thick, the words too fast and Samira is discreetly pulling her along.

Somehow Clarke knows that craning her neck to gape at the man wouldn’t be a good choice.

The fervor burning at the bottom of the man’s eyes bothers Clarke, but most of all it’s the complete absence of some clans that weighs her down, a stone of doubt tied around her neck. 

Azgeda above the others. 

She wants to ask about it to the First Maid, but the question dies in her throat as she spots an ill disguised spray of blood darkening a wall. 

Subsequent details rob her of her voice - a smashed vase hurriedly swept into a corner, a tapestry clearly cut to ribbons by a slashing sword  and more - until Clarke has to keep her eyes fixed straight ahead - too afraid of what she’ll see if she allows herself to stray.

By the time they come to a halt in front of the throne room doors she is shaking like a leaf about to fall, body itching to withdraw, turn tail and run as far from who’s inside as possible. 

And when Samira nods to the guards and takes a step closer to Clarke as if she voiced her desire aloud - that is when Clarke notices that all the handmaidens are armed as well, slim, elegant daggers hanging at their waists. 

The measure of safety Clarke had found in the people around her is stripped away, and what’s left is something far more threatening.. 

Slow and quietly the doors swing open and her escort parts, leaving her nowhere to go but forward. 

They don’t follow her inside and Clarke is half relieved and half afraid by what it means. 

The throne room - which always seemed airy and full of light - is turned into an echoing cavern by her fears. Sunlight streams inside from the balcony behind the throne, but weakly, rays scarcely reaching the dais while the seat itself is shrouded in gloom. 

A figure waits for her halfway to the steps and when a draft parts the curtains hiding the sky behind Heda’s seat - allowing sunlight to shine brightly for a second - Clarke recognizes Titus. 

The next moment an afterimage of searing light blurs her vision and she has to stop, blink several times before she can continue walking. 

Was the walk ever this  _ long  _ before? It feels like it’s taking forever, but in a way Clarke is glad, for with every step she takes and every throb of the bruises healing along her ribs, her anger grows. 

So when she comes face to face with Titus, and he doesn’t move aside, nor speaks - simply stares down at her unreadable - lashing out to slap him is the easiest, most  _ satisfying  _ thing she’s done in ages.

She does so twice - the open handed blows make her hand ache - and he just takes it. 

But what gives her pause is the broken look that flashes through his face - as if something is tearing up inside him - and Clarke thinks he stares at her like someone who has seen a ghost for the first time, or something that he thought impossible. 

Titus looks like a believer left with nothing but shaken, shattered faith and hollow-ringing prayers. 

And if the zealotry transforming his eyes into black-hot coals scared Clarke before, the dead way he stares out at the world cuts her to the bone. 

It makes her wonder what he sees, or rather what he saw three nights before. 

The rustle coming from the throne chases moisture from Clarke’s mouth and she stares past Titus’ shoulder - she doesn’t want to, but a hidden force compels her to. 

Maybe there’s nothing magical - nothing  _ evil _ about it - just the natural curiosity of each and every human being, but Clarke remembers the strange woman in Lexa’s bedroom and talks of sacrifices. 

Again, she wonders who or what she has brought back. 

“Wanheda.”

It is her voice alright, but flat and cold like Clarke has never heard it. It carries the chill of the grave and Clarke has to ball her hands up into fists, will her feet to still against the stone underneath her boots, hoping she will somehow grow roots that will keep her from an ignominious retreat. 

She can see  _ her _ now, a darker silhouette against the throne - not sitting straight like she remembers, but lounging slouched and brooding like an avatar of destruction. 

A few details emerge as Heda shifts - Heda, because Clarke can’t bring herself to call her Lexa yet - like the sash spilling down the dais like a river of blood, but edged in black. 

(and that’s new) 

The eyes remain the same, hard and piercing and infinitely green. 

Even a few paces away Clarke can distinguish the different hues trapped within the jade orbs, mirroring all the colors of the forest beyond Polis’ walls - Heda’s gaze burning into her own, fierce like a wolf’s amid false shadows.

She can’t reply, and so she waits for the Commander to speak again, regretting when she does, for she is speared through with a simple question, that Heda aims as surely as she did the spear that killed the Ice Queen.

“Why?” 

There is no need to ask what.

It’s glaringly obvious. 

Clarke widens her stance and squares her shoulders, sweat plastering her new clothes to her back. She is all too aware of the way her lips tremble as they part, and wonders if Heda can hear her heart hammering madly against her rib cage.

She refuses to show that she’s afraid, and uses the mask Heda provided as a shield. But she knows it for a travesty.

She’s terrified. 

“Your people need you,” she hates the way her voice bounces almost scornfully off the walls, grimacing as she tastes her own lie, “the Coalition needs you. Without you, they fall apart.” 

A rustle from her right as Titus shifts, and with what she saw outside and his reaction, Clarke knows that she is at least partially right. 

“My people…” a pause that seems to stretch forever, “or you?” 

Clarke stares, mouth hanging open. How can Heda even ask this, when she already knows the answer. 

Of course Clarke needs her - Clarke loves her. Or has she forgotten? 

Perhaps, it dawns on her with utter horror, perhaps this is the price - a heartless, unfeeling Heda, and she condemned to see the ghost of the woman she used to know within the eyes of a stranger. 

Suddenly everything becomes unbearable and Clarke’s thin armor shatters. 

She turns and flies along the throne room, feeling Titus’ fingers brush her flailing arm for an instant as she rushes by. 

He calls for her to stop and when he says her name she thinks she will be sick, but then she’s pushing the doors open and slipping through, the guards outside staring as she flashes by before they give chase. 

Clarke ignores the surprised faces, the startled looks - she doesn’t care that she’s wearing her emotions on her sleeve. Not now.  

Even though she knows there will be consequences. 

Her feet move with a mind of their own and bring her back to her old rooms - the ones she had been given before this nightmare started. 

She makes it inside and slams the door, laughing when she realizes there is nothing for her to bar it with. 

But even if she could the guards would tear it down - so in the end why bother?

Strangely enough the corridor outside stays quiet, and careful step by careful step Clarke edges away from the door and deeper into her old rooms. 

They have not changed much in the little time she spent away from them and although she knows it’s dangerous, Clarke lets her gaze roam the wide space, a broken sob of relief escaping her when her eyes come to rest on the floor she remembers spattered with Heda’s blood. 

Someone cleaned it thoroughly, but no amount of scrubbing could erase the chipped walls, nor replace the shattered furniture. 

Nothing can take away her memories. 

There is a standing mirror in a corner, its surface tarnished by the passage of time and a bit warped, but the reflection staring back at her is clear enough. 

Clarke walks closer, scarcely able to believe what her eyes are showing her, fingers rising to touch the paint smeared across her cheek. 

It’s limestone and ashes traced in a pattern she has only seen once before. 

On Reapers. 

Clarke screams, fists swatting at the mirror until it breaks, cutting scarlet gashes on her hands. Tears run freely down her cheeks as the scream tapers off into a pained keen, and she tastes them on her lips, bitter like saltwater. 

She crumbles to the floor and keeps on crying until she’s drowning in her grief.

*************************************

When the door opens hours later, Clarke is ready. 

She has been waiting for  _ them _ to come, crouched low and shoulders hunched, her back to the wall. 

Her eyes itch with more tears, they burn from staring so long at the same spot, but Clarke refuses to let herself break again. 

Her hands burn and some of the cuts still bleed through the rags she hastily wound around her knuckles. It’s difficult to hold the piece of broken mirror, point forward like a makeshift knife, but it’s the only weapon she has. 

She isn’t sure how long she will manage to resist, but she’ll make them bleed and she won’t go down quietly.

The door creaks open and she tenses. 

Aden is standing on the doorstep and the shard of mirror clutters to the floor. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
